


Be My Slow Road To Ruin

by olderbynow



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Fluff, There Is Only One Bed Trope, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-07-17
Packaged: 2018-07-24 14:17:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7511548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olderbynow/pseuds/olderbynow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Testing the theory that no fandom can ever have too many There Is Only One Bed trope fanfics. (And showing off my spectacular lack of timing, as per usual, since Whopooh JUST pointed out on tumblr how well this trope has been done already. But ISTG, this was already nearly completed by then.) </p><p>Set after <i>The Blood of Juana the Mad</i>. You know, before they get too comfortable with each other post-Jack’s ‘Reckless Driving Meltdown’ in <i>Blood at the Wheel</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Be My Slow Road To Ruin

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to Sarahtoo for helping me fill the gaps in this - and for pointing out that that's not really how you spell those words 0:). (All the tacos for you!)

Jack looks at the rain pelting down outside the car, huge drops of it pounding against the windows of the Hispano-Suiza, turning the whole world a darker and darker grey as the sun sets. Asks himself for the 39th time why he ever agreed to this trip. (39 is an estimate: It was a while before he started counting, but he’s fairly certain the guess is at least a close one.)  
  
The deal he made with himself is, once he gets to 40 he’ll ask the question out loud. It’s a goal, meant both as a distraction and a way to remind himself that he survived another minute of this.  
  
Something dark and shapeless appears out of nowhere and Phryne brakes sharply and completely ineffectually, the car skidding across the thick blanket of water covering the road.  
  
One tyre finally gets a grip and they spin perilously for a few seconds before coming to an unpleasant halt, now facing the tree she nearly rammed into when the road took a turn they couldn’t see through the rain.  
  
Jesus Christ!  
  
She’s biting her lip, a rare but obvious nervous tell. Surely that must mean she’s about ready to see reason.  
  
“You’re going to get us both killed driving like this.” He tries to rein in his frustration. It seems pointless to argue the point, on the whole, since odds are not exactly in favour of her making any changes on this - that became more than abundantly clear during the Gertrude Haynes investigation, and they’re only just finding their footing again after his outburst. (And for the record, he _doesn’t_ want to change her, it’s just that he quite likes her being alive.)  
  
“Oh, come on, Jack.”  
  
She has her half-amused, half-exasperated voice on. Conversations that begin like that usually end with him agreeing to do something completely outrageous and potentially unethical and he needs to shut it down as quickly as possible, before she finds a weakness to latch onto. (Who’s he kidding, here? He needs to shut this down before she can smile at him for long enough that he forgets exactly _why_ driving through this storm is a terrible idea. Once again for the record, it _is_ a terrible idea.)  
  
“No,” he says firmly. Detective Inspector Jack Robinson, Officially Done Messing Around. (It’s a voice that actually sometimes works with her, so he generally tries not to overuse it and risk dulling the effect.) “We’ll never get there tonight, and even if we did it’d be too late in the evening to interview the man.”  
  
(This was how she got to him, of course: Potential witness to the murder they’ve been blindly investigating for a couple of weeks now, hiding out on the family farm somewhere between Melbourne and Bendigo, no telephone within miles. (It baffles him that the vagueness of the geography didn’t immediately put him off - and he’s fairly certain she felt the same when he agreed to come along.) “If you don’t come with me to question him, I’ll just do it myself.”  
  
The very obvious fact is that her even inviting him along is something of A Big Deal, an olive branch there’s no way he’ll not grasp for all he’s worth. She could just as easily simply have taken off with him only finding out about it _after_ whatever events that would inevitably have her in danger and somehow wiggling her way out of it had already occurred.  
  
Not going was never really an option.)  
  
“So what do you want to do? Sleep here in the car?” The suggestive question is laced with annoyance, but he’s sure it stems mainly from the fact that she knows he’s right and she really doesn’t want to admit it. The road has all but vanished, the only thing to guide them is a line of scattered trees that may or may not run alongside the road.  
  
He sighs, eyeing the backseat and telling himself that even so much as considering the suggestion is a _terrible_ idea, for so many reasons.  
  
She smiles, clearly buoyed up by the strained look on his face as he takes a few seconds to _not_ think about the logistics of them both trying to lie down in this car. “You know, the seats recline,” she tells him, far too cheerfully.  
  
“I’m sure they do,” he agrees. He’s sure she knows _how_ as well - and that she knows _exactly_ how two people could be comfortable spending the night here.  
  
Whatever solutions she has found for this in the past, the less he knows about them the better.  
  
“There must be a farm or something nearby where we can spend the night,” he suggests finally. If only they can find one. Whatever grief she regularly gives _him_ , she’d never be anything less than grateful and charming to helpful strangers. Hell, if they have any young men at home she’ll probably manage to break a few hearts before the weather turns and they can move on.  
  
Somehow the thought doesn’t amuse him much.  
  
“And are we to stay parked here until a kindly farmer happens upon us and invites us to come home with him?”  
  
All of Jack’s restraint goes into him not rolling his eyes. If he hadn’t come along on this ridiculous expedition something like that would undoubtedly have happened, simply because that’s the sort of thing that always just _does_ seem to happen to her.  
  
“Keep driving,” he says against his better judgement. “Slowly.”  
  
She throws him a look that’s clearly meant to say she finds him incredibly dull and unadventurous, but the pace she sets is slow enough that he knows the silent protest is only for show.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
Her smile is genuine, and in spite of everything he finds himself smiling back, still keeping half an eye on what is hopefully the road.  
  
*  
  
After about half an hour of slowly edging ahead - the world getting gradually darker; Jack determinedly staying quiet, convinced that any sound will have her foot falling so much heavier on the gas pedal - she suddenly stops. He looks at her, confused.  
  
“There’s a house,” she tells him.  
  
He looks in the direction she’s pointing, wondering how on earth she’d know, vaguely remembering Collins telling him how she practically ran through pitch darkness along the train tracks looking for a dead body. (Scaled Kilimanjaro. Certainly, Miss Fisher. Whatever you say.)  
  
“Where?”  
  
Jack wonders what _her_ restraint is being spent on when she rolls her eyes at him, smiling smugly. “Don’t you trust me?”  
  
He snorts. “Not as far as I could throw you.”  
  
He regrets the words immediately when she smirks, eyes twinkling dangerously in the near darkness. “And how far do you think that is, Jack?”  
  
From her expression it’s more than obvious that she’s thinking of him throwing her places, which _obviously_ has him thinking about it, and - “We will never know, Miss Fisher,” he sighs, doing his best to sound bored by her antics.  
  
“Never say never,” she tells him, leaning just a little bit too close for comfort. Or not quite close enough, he can never really decide. “Shall we?”  
  
He nods and makes a move to get out of the car. Briefly considers running to her side and offering up his coat as a makeshift umbrella, but then thinks the better of it. She’s a modern woman, after all, she’d only resent the attempt to save her. And, more importantly, _he’ll_ get soaked if he does it.  
  
Outside the car he looks around and finally sees the building that had her pulling over. He’s not sure if it’s a cottage or a shed, but as they get closer he decides that it doesn’t matter: It looks solidly built so it’ll probably be dry inside.  
  
He jostles the handle of the wooden door, but it doesn’t budge. “Damn. It’s locked.”  
  
They’re both soaked through by now, even his trenchcoat not worth much against these quantities of water (so he might as well have offered it to her after all). He’s about to turn around and make his way back to the car, but she’s bending down and fiddling with the lock.  
  
“Miss Fisher,” he says admonishingly. “That’s breaking and entering.”  
  
“I’m not breaking anything, Jack. I really do wish you’d learn to make that distinction.”  
  
He shrugs, unseen behind her. To be fair, she _isn’t_ breaking anything - and he really would like to get out of the rain soon. “Well then, could you hurry up, please?”  
  
She laughs softly, amusement turning to glee as the lock clicks and the door falls open. She invites him to walk in ahead of her with all the gallantry he didn’t show before.  
  
He smiles, completely insincere.  
  
She steps in behind him and goes to work lighting a kerosene lamp she grabs from a hook next to the door. (For a brief, ridiculous moment he wonders if she’s been here before, until it occurs to him that that is in fact a completely natural place to hang a lamp.)  
  
Turns out it’s a cabin, not a shed. Its single room is sparsely furnished - the place probably belongs to a hunter - but serviceable. There’s a fireplace, clearly also used for cooking, stone chimney resting against the far wall opposite the door, a table with three wooden chairs and a cabinet and counter on one side of the room, and on the other side is a bed.  
  
The floor below them is an uneven mess of stones and dirt. But at least it’s _dry_ stone and dirt.  
  
She sets the now-lit lamp down on the table and goes to investigate the cabinet, he imagines looking for food.  
  
By some miracle there’s a wicker basket of firewood sitting next to the fireplace. Jack sends a silent ‘thank you’ to whomever had the foresight to prepare that, and sets about lighting a fire. It’s not terribly cold, but they’re both dripping wet and will need to dry out somehow.  
  
When he turns around she has already opened two tins of something that looks entirely too much like the Maconochie they used to eat in the trenches and is sniffing one of them skeptically. She looks at him and pulls a face as if to say “That’ll do,” and he imagines it will. It did back then, after all.  
  
“Not exactly Mr. Butler’s gratin, is it?”  
  
She smiles. “I don’t think this would recognise a gratin if you clubbed it over the head with one.”  
  
“Generally I don’t think gratins make for great clubs.”  
  
She hands him the tins. Clearly cooking their meal will be his punishment for that ridiculous remark. He could think of worse things, so he accepts them and sets to work.  
  
When the stew has been poured into a pan and is heating on the grate in the fireplace he turns around.  
  
And realises just how much worse his punishment could be.  
  
Her coat is draped over one chair, her boots discarded next to it, and she’s shimmying out of a ridiculously impractical (but also ridiculously well-fitting, he couldn’t help noticing before they left Melbourne) dress.  
  
“Uh, Miss Fisher?” He hates himself for the way his voice shakes.  
  
She bends down to grab her dress as she steps out of it, and the look she throws him as she does it is one he already knows he’ll be spending sleepless nights trying to either forget or remember down to the last detail.  
  
He blinks slowly, jaw clenched.  
  
“I was soaking wet,” she points out.  
  
He clears his throat.  
  
“So are you,” she tells him, and he can’t quite tell if she’s teasing him or merely being practical.  
  
What he _can_ tell is that she’s wearing a pale silk slip that is so low-cut and so short one might be led to believe the price of silk was too high to have a whole one made. It’s wet, but not soaked, only sticking to her skin in patches, but in a way that doesn’t necessarily help her appear covered up. Even ignoring that there’s entirely too much of her milky skin on display and he really should turn around. Or at the very least look at something else.  
  
She smiles, clearly taking genuine pleasure in his discomfort, which he has cleverly disguised as open admiration. “Do you need a hand?” she asks, moving a step closer and indicating his own dripping attire.  
  
“No, thank you,” he says, not sounding quite as firm as he would have maybe liked, but still firm enough to get the point across. “I think I can manage.”  
  
He turns around, pretending to check on the food, and then shrugs off his coat. When he moves to hang it on the last available chair she takes the coat from his hands and he realises she’s right next to him. He doesn’t look at her and doesn’t quite trust his voice enough to say thank you, so instead he takes a couple of steps away from the fire, pretending to himself that he’s doing it so she can get warm and look after their food, not because _he_ really, really needs to get away from her just now.  
  
Even the way she breathes sounds exasperated (who ever heard of anything so ridiculous, surely he’s imagining things) and he knows that if he were to turn around he’d find her shaking her head at him.  
  
But he also knows she’ll be doing it wearing only lingerie and so his feet remain nailed firmly to the floor.  
  
He shrugs off his jacket, releasing a breath he didn’t know he was holding when she doesn’t take it from him, and hangs it on the corner of the chair her dress is already draped over. Next he unbuttons his waistcoat and hangs it on top of the jacket. Finally he bends down to untie his laces and steps out of his shoes. His socks make a pool of water on the floor and his toes curl against the sudden cold of the rough floor.  
  
“That’s it?” she asks from behind him, sounding more incredulous than amused.  
  
He considers the question and then pulls off his black socks, leaving him barefoot and feeling very exposed, much more than he probably should considering _she’s_ the one who’s practically naked. “That’s it,” he agrees.  
  
“You’re not even going to take off your tie?”  
  
He looks down his front. It honestly hadn’t occurred to him, but suddenly it seems important that he keep it on. It’s a shield and removing it at her suggestion would leave him open to all sorts of attacks. “No.”  
  
She smiles playfully, clearly not familiar with the hidden powers possessed by this tie; she can just as easily work around it. “I think the food is ready,” she tells him, and he wonders if he can allow himself to believe that spells the end of the discussion of his relative state of undress.  
  
Probably not, to be honest, but it’s a welcome respite if nothing else.  
  
He digs through the cupboard and finds two bowls, both chipped but usable, debates briefly over cutlery and in the end decides that spoons will probably suffice.  
  
He turns around slowly, steeling himself and foolishly hoping against hope, but yes, there she is, still with more of her thighs on display than on any of the occasions when she has pulled out a dagger and informed him that he never saw that.  
  
Which he did. Every damn time.  
  
There’s no dagger now - garter and whatever sheath she keeps the thing in (and he hopes to God she _does_ keep it in a sheath and he was just always too distracted to notice) discarded on a chair. All that’s there is pale, exposed flesh.  
  
He all but pushes the bowls and spoons into her outstretched hands, leaving her to distribute the food. She does so without a word, and the raised eyebrow is much easier to ignore than the curve of her neck, practically begging him to reach out and trace its line with his fingertips.  
  
She hands him a bowl and sits down in front of the fire, leaving him to make up his own mind about whether or not to join her.  
  
He doesn’t particularly need heating up, if he’s completely honest, but it would look odd to sit anywhere else, really, so he sits down next to her, far enough away that there’s no risk of accidentally brushing up against her as they eat but not so far that she’ll notice.  
  
At least he hopes she won’t.  
  
“You do realise we’re eating stolen food, don’t you?” she says after a few minutes.  
  
He considers it while he chews something squishy and indeterminable. “This - whatever this is - has been appropriated by the Victoria Constabulary in connection with official police business.”  
  
She smirks.  
  
“I’ll leave some money before we go.”  
  
“I do think _I_ should be the one to pay for the food,” she argues. “It’s my fault we’re here, after all.”  
  
Jack very nearly drops his spoon. Was that an admission of guilt he just heard? From Phryne Fisher?  
  
Clearly his incredulity is showing because she smiles, all false innocence.  
  
“How very modern,” he says dryly.  
  
“Or,” she says, shifting slightly closer, somehow managing to make (he’s certain she’s doing it on purpose!) one strap fall off her shoulder, the silk of her slip dropping half an inch, exposing even more skin for him to not look at. “Perhaps this was my plan all along. To get you alone in this cottage so I could have my wicked way with you.”  
  
He looks her straight in the eye, determinedly not letting his gaze stray anywhere else. “If that were the case, Miss Fisher, I do think you could have provided better fare.”  
  
Eyes never leaving hers, he puts down his empty bowl and reaches out to put the silky strap back in its place. His fingers brush against her skin and he can feel goosebumps forming under his touch.  
  
This might be the most foolish thing he has ever done, he decides, when her eyes break free from his to glance at his fingers, still holding the no longer wayward strap of silk, and she looks back at him, her expression very much one like the cat that ate the canary.  
  
Definitely a mistake, he tells himself, still not letting go.  
  
She smiles softly, expectantly, but doesn’t move.  
  
“You know, Miss Fisher,” he tells her, not really sure even as he speaks what it is he wants her to know. “I don’t think your ways are that wicked at all.”  
  
(What does that even mean? And it _certainly_ isn’t true.)  
  
“They can be if you want them to.”  
  
There’s a promise in her voice that makes his throat go dry. But at the same time -  
  
He doesn’t. Want them to.  
  
At least it’s not _all_ he wants.  
  
He leans back, his hand falling from her shoulder and busying itself stacking their empty bowls. “Why don’t you see if your dress has dried while I clean these up?” he suggests, getting up and walking away, surprising himself by sounding almost entirely indifferent.  
  
“Jack,” she says, sounding disappointed and like she’s very nearly pleading with him, very nearly making him turn back around.  
  
“Please, Miss Fisher.” (Not calling her Phryne is his last-ditch effort.) If she doesn’t cover herself up soon, he _will_ be sleeping in the car. Alone.  
  
She doesn’t reply, but he can hear the sound of fabric rustling against fabric, a chair scraping against the floor. His own pulse, throbbing in his ears.  
  
He stands by the counter for close to a minute before realising there’s no indoor plumbing and therefore no water to clean up after themselves. The simple solution, of course, would be to merely bring the things outside, but he doesn’t much fancy going out there himself, so instead he just leaves everything in the tin basin already holding one crusted pan that’s been sitting there for God knows how long.  
  
Deciding she must be done putting her clothes back on, he turns around.  
  
She is sitting on the floor again, her back to him, scraping at some dirt on her stockings. She really did get dressed properly, although the dress clings to her in a way that screams “still wet”! (Hardly surprising - they’ve barely been there for half an hour, it’s a wonder the thing has even stopped actually dripping water.) Was he really that blatantly desperate? Somehow the suspicion that he was lessens the relief he feels, seeing her covered up.  
  
If there’s a hint of disappointment as well, he’s sure he doesn’t even notice it. Now if only she won’t, either...  
  
He walks over and sits down across from her, at what might reasonably be considered a safe distance, although he’s never really quite sure around her. (He suspects generally he should stay further away than he does.)  
  
She smiles slightly, whether it’s in apology or resignation, he isn’t sure. Either way, he doesn’t smile back.  
  
It seems to provoke her, and her tone is almost taunting when she speaks. “Have you considered sleeping arrangements, Jack?”  
  
One bed, and not even a particularly large one.  
  
He hasn’t, actually, and he definitely should have. That is absolutely the sort of practical matter he ought to have thought about, except he’s been so determined to _not_ think about it for reasons that are anything but practical.  
  
Reality, however, demands practicality.  
  
“This floor seems perfectly comfortable,” he says stupidly, shifts slightly to get away from a sharp edge digging into his left buttock.  
  
Perfectly appropriate, anyway.  
  
In her world, so is the look she gives him, he’s sure.  
  
He would quite like to argue the point, make her see the impropriety of this whole situation, never mind that fact that she thinks them sharing a bed would be a completely reasonable thing to do, but there is absolutely no way in which he’ll be able to get through a conversation like that without having to explain just exactly _why_ it’s such a terrible idea.  
  
(The truth is, of course, that part of him thinks it’s a wonderful idea. Which is _exactly_ why it’s a terrible idea.)  
  
Resisting her advances is hard enough in the parlour at Wardlow when he’s on his second whiskey and she’s smiling and leaning closer and being generally… well, Phryne.  
  
Resisting her advances when she’s doing those things _and_ lying next to him on a bed that seems to just get smaller and smaller every time his eyes stray to it is surely beyond what any man can be asked to do, honourable or not.  
  
“I just don’t think it would be appropriate,” he says. Not a terrific start to the conversation, perhaps, but it’ll have to do.  
  
“Appropriate?” she says, voice laced with disdain.  
  
_Definitely_ not a terrific start; he has clearly stepped in it now. “I didn’t mean--” He cuts himself off with a sigh, not entirely sure what it is he doesn’t mean. “I didn’t mean you.”  
  
And he doesn’t, even if he could have phrased it rather better.  
  
“I didn’t mean to suggest that you weren’t--that there--” he trails off, shaking his head in resignation. “It would be a very bad idea.”  
  
Simple, concise, to the point. Why didn’t he open with that?  
  
Her features change so swiftly from angry to soft and playful that he realises - much too late - that she was only kidding. “Or it could be a very good idea.” Her voice holds a thousand promises he doesn’t want to hear (and he wants to hear them so desperately that maybe he’s imagining them).  
  
He smiles, relief that this won’t turn into an argument about his views on her morals or lack thereof washing away far more of his reservations than it should be allowed to. (Her life is hers to live as she wants and he’d never judge her for it, but he’d almost certainly botch the attempt to explain that to her.) “Perhaps that’s what I’m worried about, Miss Fisher,” he jokes.  
  
Or, he _hopes_ it sounds like a joke.  
  
She laughs and he breathes a sigh of relief. “So you intend to sleep on the floor?”  
  
“I’ll put the chairs together and make a bench.” It won’t be the least comfortable night he’s ever spent.  
  
She looks him up and down slowly, from his bare feet to his shoulders, and then at the three chairs.  
  
Chairs that, just like the bed, seem to grow smaller and smaller every time he looks at them. (Did _Lewis Carroll_ build this place?)  
  
“I’m sure that’ll be very pleasant,” she says, her voice dripping amused sarcasm. “Should you change your mind, however, the invitation stands.”  
  
An invitation to what, exactly, he wants to ask, except he’s fairly certain he’d rather not know the answer. At least then he can claim ignorance if need be.  
  
Being a passenger when Miss Fisher is in the driver’s seat takes its toll, and the heat of the fire and all the thoughts Jack’s not thinking are making him drowsy. He wants to check his watch, but suspects it’s still ridiculously early. Darkness may have fallen, but that could be the weather as much as the hour. However, a yawn escapes and he he holds a hand to his mouth, attempting to cover it.  
  
“Bedtime already, Inspector?”  
  
Since they’ve already established that he’ll be spending the night on a bench made out of three (tiny) chairs, he ignores the outrageously suggestive tone.  
  
“I’ve spent the whole day with _you_ , Miss Fisher, I’m exhausted.”  
  
She pulls a face, her features going from flirty to childish and back to flirty so quickly his head spins. It has always amazed him how, for someone so apparently guarded, her face is still so expressive. It’s why he looks at her much more than he should: Somewhere behind the flirty, ‘smartest person in the room’ attitude is the real her, and sometimes that Phryne Fisher shines through.  
  
(It’s not the only reason he looks at her, of course, but it’s the one he’s the most comfortable with, so he’ll stick to it.)  
  
He gets up and stands for a moment taking in the room and then he looks down at her.  
  
She holds up a hand to him, a silent request, and he takes it and pulls her to her feet. She’s smirking, pulling harder on his arm than she really needs to, making _him_ pull harder until suddenly she stops resisting and he ends up pulling her straight into him, her upturned chin colliding with his chest.  
  
He knows she did it on purpose, and he should just roll his eyes at her and move away. Her hand is still wrapped around his (a fluid motion he doesn’t even notice until he very much _does_ notice that they’re holding hands) and she’s looking up at him through impossibly thick lashes, her eyes wide and her lips slightly parted.  
  
Those eyes and those lips are both dangerous territory, and so instead he looks at her hair, her usually neat bob much less neat after its encounter with Mother Nature.  
  
With his other hand he reaches up and brushes her fringe free where it’s sticking to her forehead.  
  
She looks momentarily self-conscious, as if it’s only occurring to her now that her appearance might be less than perfectly groomed, and he smiles.  
  
Her thumb is drawing lazy circles on the back of his hand. She’s standing so close he can feel the heat of her body, her stockinged feet and his bare ones practically touching.  
  
Her eyes are questioning, her lips slightly parted. (“The invitation stands.”) He shifts slightly, moving closer without quite being aware of it.  
  
The room is suddenly lit up by lightning and seconds later thunder booms, startling them both and making Jack take a step back, pulling his hand free as he does. He can’t tell if Phryne’s hitched breath is shock or a suppressed sigh, focuses instead on taking a deep breath of his own.  
  
That was entirely too close for… something. (Comfort; his peace of mind; it to end in nothing, again.)  
  
When he looks up at her she’s already turning away, her attention on the bed instead of him, and he’s both grateful and disappointed.  
  
She inspects the blankets covering the mattress, then shakes them. A fine cloud of dust spreads around her and she pulls a face at him.  
  
“These chairs don’t look so bad now, do they?” he teases, pulling two of them together.  
  
She shrugs, bending down to test the mattress with her hands. “I’m not trading with you,” she replies, as if that’s what he meant. “This might be lumpy, but at least it’s soft.”  
  
He pulls the last chair over, lining them up in a row. They most definitely aren’t soft. And with a bit of luck they’ll fit him from around his knees to his shoulders.  
  
He looks at her rearranging the blankets, but turns back to his own project when she looks up. Perhaps he can space the chairs out just a little further, or maybe he should just sleep sitting up?  
  
“Here,” she says suddenly from behind him.  
  
When he turns she’s holding out a blanket for him.  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“I still think you’re being silly,” she informs him.  
  
“Yes, well you were bound to rub off on me eventually.”  
  
She laughs. “I don’t think I’ve ever turned down a bed in favour of wooden chairs.”  
  
“Oh, I’m sure you’ve never turned down a bed to sleep in at all.”  
  
“Who said anything about sleeping in it?”  
  
Right. He busies himself laying out the blanket, folding it up so it covers the seats of all three chairs as much as possible.  
  
“Goodnight, Jack,” she says from behind him and he turns to look at her as she crawls into bed. She keeps to the far side of it, clearly leaving enough room for him to get in as well. Should he change his mind.  
  
“Goodnight, Miss Fisher.”  
  
A few experiments later he decides the chairs have been placed in a way that will make him as little uncomfortable as is possible, and after turning off the lamp he lays down.  
  
Still not exactly _comfortable_ , perhaps, but it’ll just have to do.  
  
*  
  
He wakes up in the night feeling cold. The room is dark; the fire in the grate has burned out. From across the room he can hear the sound of her steady breathing. Outside the storm appears to have finally stopped.  
  
He shifts, trying to ease the pressure on his shoulder, not quite numb enough not to hurt, and all but falls off his makeshift bed. His foot hits the floor as his legs slip and the chair they have been dangling from falls over with a crash.  
  
Shit.  
  
“Jack?” Her voice is heavy with sleep. “Would you please just come to bed?”  
  
In a move he already knows will backfire spectacularly, one way or another, Jack does as he’s told. He lays down as close to the edge as possible, back turned to her, every muscle in his body tense.  
  
“Thank you,” she mumbles, sounding half asleep again already.  
  
Right.  
  
Moments pass and he realises she simply _has_ gone back to sleep. Slowly both his brain and body begin to relax and he shifts, trying to get the weight off his sore shoulder. Finally he gives up, rolls over to his back, arms folded on his chest, turning his head towards her to make sure there’s still some amount of distance between them.  
  
In the darkness he can just make out the shape of her, the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist, the place along her arm where the blanket is bunched up, leaving her shoulder exposed to the chilly night air.  
  
He reaches out and pulls the blanket up to her neck. She moves slightly, adjusting the fabric in her sleep, and he pulls his hand away quickly, suddenly feeling that the gesture is much too intimate - and made more so by the fact that she’s not aware of him doing it.  
  
He wonders how he’ll ever manage to sleep now. He has been so intent on blaming the tension between them on her and the games she plays, but now she’s sleeping, completely harmless, and yet completely _not_ harmless, because she is still _there_ , and, as it turns out, that’s more than enough to unsettle him.  
  
It’s possible, even, that having her this close and this defenceless (he’s loath to use that word about her, even to himself) is getting to him so much more than her coy looks and outrageous comments.  
  
She trusts him, called him ‘a man of honour’, but the thoughts he’s having lying here are anything but honourable. (They often are, of course, but normally it doesn’t matter as much.)  
  
He listens to the sound of her breathing, watches the slow rise and fall of her blanket until his neck begins to ache and he turns his head back to look at the ceiling instead.  
  
Her soft inhale and exhale still audible, he closes his eyes, relaxed.  
  
*  
  
When he wakes up next, there’s light streaming in through the windows, a ray of sunshine hitting him squarely in the face. He squints against the sudden assault of daylight (or his sudden awareness of it, at least), but doesn’t move.  
  
Phryne’s - Miss Fisher’s, she _has_ to be ‘Miss Fisher’ to him right now - arm is thrown over his chest, her fingers wrapped tightly around the tie he so stubbornly (so foolishly, as it turns out now) refused to remove last night. She’s flat on her stomach, spread out with the attitude of someone used to a much larger bed. Someone used to commanding the space that is that much larger bed, anyone else present in it there only because she wants them there, and only for as long as she does.  
  
It has been years since he has woken up next to someone else (his marriage to Rosie over long before the actual legal process began) and he wonders if it should really feel this comfortable, this easy.  
  
He knows that it shouldn’t, that he shouldn’t _let_ himself be this comfortable with her, because she will never let herself be this comfortable with him - and she would never want to.  
  
Except here she is, sleeping peacefully but still with a grip on him so tight it’s nearly impossible not to lend some significance to it.  
  
Her face is turned towards him and he wants to reach out and brush her hair away so he can see her expression properly, but he worries that if he does, some sort of spell will be broken and whatever this moment, this feeling, is, it will be over.  
  
So instead he just watches her, waiting for her to stir on her own accord.  
  
A foolish man - the sort of man who reads Shakespeare and memorises whole passages - might be tempted to say that he’d be content lying here forever, and Jack spends a large part of the morning wondering if he is in fact not a rather foolish man.  
  
She wakes slowly (adorably, his mind supplies, not at all helpfully), stretching before her eyes open, but still not letting go of him.  
  
When her eyes open they are narrowed, disgruntled, but she’s smiling.  
  
“Morning,” he says, smiling back.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
“Nearly noon,” he jokes.  
  
“Liar.”  
  
“The sun has been up for hours,” he amends the statement.  
  
She frowns, turning onto her side so she’s facing him, finally releasing him, but only after yanking on the tie gently, clearing up any doubt he may have had about her being aware that she was holding on to it. “Why didn’t you wake me up sooner, then?”  
  
“Wake the sleeping dragon? I wouldn’t dare to.”  
  
She laughs softly.  
  
He is _definitely_ a foolish man.  
  
“The weather’s turned,” she says, looking out the window.  
  
“It has.”  
  
“We should probably--” she trails off, looking at him expectantly.  
  
“We should.”  
  
He doesn’t move. (The minute he does, it will be over.)  
  
When he doesn’t, she does. But instead of getting out of the bed on her own side she has clearly decided to save herself six steps and get out on _his_ side.  
  
Which involves crawling over him.  
  
With her dress bunched up around her hips she is effectively straddling him, pausing there for a brief moment to look down at him, her eyes all sparkle and provocation.  
  
He looks back at her steadily and her face seems to change, her features landing somewhere a lot less certain. Of herself, of him, of anything.  
  
With an ever-so-slightly forced smile she pushes away and off the bed and he watches her as she checks on her coat and then walks to the door and goes outside. Only when the door has closed behind her does he get up.  
  
Outside the window, Phryne’s washing her face using rainwater collected in a barrel. He watches as she scrubs her face with her hands, and then as she looks down her own body to check the state of her dress with a slight frown. She begins rubbing on a stain on the front of it and he turns away.  
  
To distract himself, he goes in search of breakfast.  
  
The only food available is those bloody tins and Jack can’t bear another meal of that; he’d rather go hungry until they reach civilization. When she comes back inside, he turns to look at her, his hand still on the cabinet door, and she grimaces, a look on her face like she tasted something she didn’t like.  
  
“We could just wait until we reach a township?” she suggests.  
  
He nods, relieved, and closes the cabinet.  
  
“Dot won’t be impressed when she sees the state of this dress,” she says lightly. Almost too lightly, as if she’s grasping for casual conversation.  
  
“I’m sure she’s seen worse,” he jokes.  
  
“Oh, she definitely has,” she says, her voice suddenly taunting, suggestive of something he doesn’t want to think about, but which she apparently wants to make him aware of.  
  
He smiles, a grimace that doesn’t reach his eyes and isn’t meant to; his standard response when she forces him to react to the reality of her dalliances. Phryne Fisher will be Phryne Fisher, and frankly it would take too much energy to be bothered by that. (It _does_ bother him, of course, but for reasons that he can’t allow to matter, so he pretends it doesn’t.)  
  
Whatever point she was trying to make, she seems to think that she succeeded, and the smile she flashes him in return is genuine.  
  
He picks up the basin holding their dirty bowls from last night. “I’ll just go out and wash this.” The words seem strangely formal to him, somehow (maybe it’s just the way he says them), but also much too everyday and casual (definitely the way he feels saying them).  
  
She nods and heads for the bed, he assumes to put it back to the state it was in when they arrived. (Much, much too everyday and casual.)  
  
The state it was in before.  
  
He rinses out the bowls and pots, letting the one that was already there when they arrived soak for a bit to loosen the grime, and then he goes back inside.  
  
She has deposited the two empty cans on the counter, two pound notes placed under them. They both look at the notes at the same time and then their eyes meet.  
  
She’s grinning and he grins back.  
  
“That seems a bit much,” he comments.  
  
“Maybe next time there’ll be gratin,” she jokes.  
  
He smiles, but doesn’t reply.  
  
Satisfied that they’ve left the place no worse for wear they make their way back to the car and get in.  
  
She sits for a moment, quiet, but then turns to look at him. “Jack, I _do_ think it would be a very good idea.”  
  
He should probably pretend he doesn’t know what she means, or admit that he does only so he can disagree with her. Instead he finds himself shifting uncomfortably in his seat, looking back at her out of the corner of his eye, lips curling up slightly. “Please just drive, Miss Fisher.”  
  
Next time.


End file.
